Dish Network 2005 Annual Report Download - page 34

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24
We depend on the Cable Act for access to others’ programming.
We purchase a substantial percentage of our programming from cable-affiliated programmers. The Cable Act’s
provisions prohibiting exclusive contracting practices with cable affiliated programmers are currently set to expire in
October 2007. If those rules are not extended, many popular programs may become unavailable to us, causing a loss
of customers and adversely affecting our revenues and financial performance. Any change in the Cable Act and the
FCC’s rules that permit the cable industry or cable-affiliated programmers to discriminate against competing
businesses, such as ours, in the sale of programming could adversely affect our ability to acquire programming at all
or to acquire programming on a cost-effective basis. Further, the FCC generally has not shown a willingness to
enforce the program access rules aggressively. As a result, we may be limited in our ability to obtain access (or
nondiscriminatory access) to programming from programmers that are affiliated with the cable system operators.
Affiliates of certain cable providers have denied us access to sports programming they feed to their cable systems
terrestrially, rather than by satellite. To the extent that cable operators deliver additional programming terrestrially
in the future, they may assert that this additional programming is also exempt from the program access laws. These
restrictions on our access to programming could materially and adversely affect our ability to compete in regions
serviced by these cable providers.
We depend on others to produce programming.
We depend on third parties to provide us with programming services. Our programming agreements have remaining
terms ranging from less than one to up to ten years and contain various renewal and cancellation provisions. We
may not be able to renew these agreements on favorable terms or at all, and these agreements may be canceled prior
to expiration of their original term. If we are unable to renew any of these agreements or the other parties cancel the
agreements, we cannot assure you that we would be able to obtain substitute programming, or that such substitute
programming would be comparable in quality or cost to our existing programming. In addition, programming costs
may continue to increase. We may be unable to pass programming costs on to our customers which could have a
material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We face increasing competition from other distributors of foreign language programming.
We face increasing competition from other distributors of foreign language programming, including programming
distributed over the Internet. There can be no assurance that we will continue to experience growth in subscribers to
our foreign-language programming services. In addition, the increasing availability of foreign language
programming from our competitors, which in certain cases has resulted from our inability to renew programming
agreements on an exclusive basis or at all, could contribute to an increase in our subscriber churn. Our agreements
with distributors of foreign language programming have varying expiration dates, and some agreements are on a
month-to-month basis. There can be no assurance that we will be able to renew these agreements on acceptable
terms or at all.
We may not be aware of certain foreign government regulations.
Because regulatory schemes vary by country, we may be subject to regulations in foreign countries of which we are
not presently aware. If that were to be the case, we could be subject to sanctions by a foreign government that could
materially and adversely affect our ability to operate in that country. We cannot assure you that any current
regulatory approvals held by us are, or will remain, sufficient in the view of foreign regulatory authorities, or that
any additional necessary approvals will be granted on a timely basis or at all, in all jurisdictions in which we wish to
operate new satellites, or that applicable restrictions in those jurisdictions will not be unduly burdensome. The
failure to obtain the authorizations necessary to operate satellites internationally could have a material adverse effect
on our ability to generate revenue and our overall competitive position.
We, our customers and companies with which we do business may be required to have authority from each country
in which we or they provide services or provide our customers use of our satellites. Because regulations in each
country are different, we may not be aware if some of our customers and/or companies with which we do business
do not hold the requisite licenses and approvals.